Functionalism Analysis

This paper will defend functionalism as the best solution presented so far to the problem of mind-body causation. I believe that functionalism points towards a translation of the physical and psychological without making these two properties indivisible using a language that relies on asymmetric similarity and not symmetrical synonimity. I will defend it against criticisms indicating that it gives an open-ended answer to the mind-body problem; chauvinistic to the extent that it rejects the ‘mind’ of creatures who do not share the same Machine Tables of the human-centric Probabilistic Automata; and the issue of the absent qualia. Outputs are not necessarily publicly observable, nor are they always expressible in the language of action, yet have

In this situation, if such a community, presumably functionally-identical with the same machine table, was taught to respond to a particular pain token (Ax) with the expression AB, then the subjective experience of each person (BA) is ‘absent’, and any other expression or output (AB, AC, etc.) can be ‘right’ output if the mental and physical conditions were correct. It implies that individual minds do not exist. Functionalism does not account for the subjective experience that can further prove that individual minds exist outside of a collective form of learning and cognition. However, I counter that humans are aware, and can learn to be aware, of the difference between ersatz and genuine pain by introspective capabilities. That there is absent qualia implies that “qualitative character is inaccessible to introspection” (Davis 239), and further, that individuals cannot, according to functionalism, be able to hold any beliefs regarding the qualitative characteristics of pain tokens. However, the beliefs about ersatz pain and genuine pain are different. As Davis

To this I answer: if mental states are evolving cognitive capabilities that affect psychological processes, and we can equate this capability to an organism having a mind without needing to specify which is the mind, thus escaping chauvinism and retaining the liberal approach of functionalism. In this case I believe that it is the liberalism in functionalism that allows it to expand, rather than collapse the notion of property and concept into a single thing, as is in Carnapian Behaviorism. Putnam challenges that saying “Pain Ax is AB” (saying that any expression of pain on a list of possible human expressions of pain is pain) reduces the pain state to behavior (74), rather than accounting for the transformative processes on the human machine table that allow for the conversion of Ax to AB. The translation of mental to physical might lead to a sort of dualist position which believes that a metaphysical something has a causal relationship with the physical body. However, evolving cognitive abilities allow for introspection, that transforms the black box itself. The ability to reflect and inspect the transformation process is a subsequent process, but not an outcome. We can say: “I am aware that Ax can be AB because of certain circumstances and beliefs that affirm that Ax is Ax, and AB is a